August, 1923. The quiet in the Holmes household in Sussex is shaken when Dorothy Ruskin, an amateur archaeologist from the Holy Land, appears with an exquisite inlaid box containing a scrap of ancient writing. Miss Ruskin soon dies in a traffic accident that Holmes and Mary prove was murder. But what was the motivation? Was it the little inlaid box holding the manuscript? Or the woman’s involvement in the volatile politics of the Holy Land? Or could it have been the manuscript itself – a letter seemingly written by Mary Magdalene that contains a biblical bombshell.

Beautifully written and steeped in authentic period detail, A Letter of Mary is a fascinating and intelligent read.